HALLUCINATIONS INSIDE THE ORACLE

In addition to a split LP with Russian band Maat Lander and keyboard player Scott Heller aka Dr Space's solo disc `Alien Planet Trip: vol 1' earlier in the year, spacerockers Øresund Space Collective return with a double LP all their own, 2017's `Hallucinations Inside the Oracle'. Comprised of four side-long instrumental pieces (although the forty-one minute title track is split over two sides of vinyl), each improvised composition offers a different kind of psychedelic experience, sometimes working in electronic, stoner, raga-rock and bluesy flavours to the heavy guitar jams and swirling cosmic keyboard atmospherics.

Mysterious sitar strains ring through `Reflections in the Mind's Eye's fizzing synth winds and placid ambient washes that gradually grow in urgency, a plodding beat taking a head-nodding trance-like hold and rattling with menace, as droning distortion and strangled guitar shards coil together into a fuzzy storm. `ESP (Extreme Spatial Perspective)' surges with bouncing electronic programming racing alongside relentless pounding drums, fizzing synth spirals and wailing electric guitar embers that twist into ethereal reaches before rumbling mud-thick bass reverberates into a heavy grooving stoner sludge in the climax - phew!

Covering sides three and four of the LP, `The Oracle's creaking electronic drones lap at drowsy sitar mediations and dusty wind- swept violin reaches that flit between frantic and airy around enveloping rising/falling synth pools. Lethargic and splintering electric guitar tendrils ring and chime with the same ethereal reaches as the early Pink Floyd improvs, groaning into the heavens over washes of electronic distortion and exotic percussion. It soon turns into a strident slow-burn guitar jam that comes roaring to life over hypnotic synth caresses before a mellow violin come-down to close on.

`Hallucinations Inside the Oracle' makes for a fine fusion of East meets West psychedelic/space music, one that compliments in parts the (two to date) ØSC-related Eastern-flavoured `West Space and Love' LP's beautifully, and both `...Oracle' and the above- mentioned `Dr Space's Alien Planet Trip' deserve to be placed alongside the finest albums of the year for space-music fans.

Four stars.